Siege of Orgrimmar Raid Schedule
Don't forget that Siege of Orgrimmar Flex Wing 4 opens this week! The final Raid Finder wing will open next week.

With Garrosh being available on Flex, you can start trying for the Heirloom weapons. Remember that the first one in each difficulty will be for your current loot spec, but after that they will be random.

Deathwing has been unleashed! Beginning today, October 15, players are able to get the original World of Warcraft, The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, and Cataclysm for only $19.99 as part of the newly upgraded World of Warcraft package (formerly known as the Battle Chest). In addition, all World of Warcraft subscribers now automatically have access to all of the content and features of these expansions at no additional cost.

With these changes, we’re making it easier than ever for new players to begin their epic adventures in Azeroth and join in on the fun.

Quick update: several of you have expressed a concern about stealth teams staying hidden until late in the game, when Dampening starts to stack. This would require them to grab Shadow Sight orbs as much as possible, which would be tricky but is actually possible (particularly with mechanics like Vanish).

We're not totally sure it would be a problem, as it would require quite a bit of skill and more than a little luck to pull off, but we do see the concern and want to avoid promoting that sort of behavior. So, when the Dampening change goes in, we'll also be changing the Shadow Sight debuff to prevent the player who picks up the orb from using stealth mechanics while it's active. That will also include abilities like Vanish or Shadowmeld.

Mechanic Scaling in Flex Raids
Does your Flex group try to keep a certain size to avoid some mechanics? Let us know your group's magic number in the comments!

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Some people have worked out that there are specific break points for specific mechanics of some bosses that change the makeup of the fight. It isn't consistent though from boss to boss, and so no there's no magic number.

Ultimately if you're trying to min/max Flex by not inviting more people that want to go and who would help build a successful team, you're overthinking it.

So if you're trying to maximize your game time by minimizing your time spent in a flex raid that's overthinking it? How do you feel about the rest of theorycrafting?
Some people are going to try to min/max everything because they find efficiency fun. But the intent of Flex is to offer a low stress option for guilds and friends to progress through content without rigid requirements to show up/sit out to maintain a number of participants. Similarly we like that people can PUG it and find some success in a managed group setting. Feel free to ignore the intent of the feature, but my response is still going to be that limiting yourself to some specific number of people is not required to have a successful run, and can be detrimental to the types of people and raid groups that the feature is directly intended for.

If a raid leader is attempting to build a rigid group to attempt Flex and is telling members of his own 25 Normal team to sit out because some lower number is optimal, that person is overthinking it. If someone is building a Flex PUG and is turning down skilled and geared players because of an optimal number he read somewhere, he's overthinking it. It's Flex, let's not pretend you're world first raiding here.

Right now there are some assumptions being made about mechanical breakpoints in Flex, but there are also some valid concerns. The orbs on Norushen for example may need tweaking.

What would be super helpful is if people have examples of breakpoints they think limit them to having a certain number of people, and what those are. It's in everyone's best interests to be able to invite whoever they want, and not feel like they're limited to some number because of mechanic scaling.

Blue Tweets

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

Flex RaidingGreg, any thoughts on making Flex loot tradeable in guild groups? Got a few items I wish had gone elsewhere. Thanks!that is an utterly fascinating technical problem
We have a long-term solution we like. Just need to see if we can get it built. (Source)

What is the reason that Flex raids have their own ilvl and difficulty? It increases ilvl bloat and feels unfair.
Unfair to whom? LFR players? It is much harder than LFR (minus the social issues). (Source)

now apparently it's more popular than normal what happened?
My hunch is it roped in a lot of groups that were doing LFR but not enjoying it, or maybe folks that had given up raiding. (Source)

What's the min ilvl and max for Flex ? Because I always see people asking for 525+ ilvl.
There is no min or max level, but in my experience, true pugs are ridiculously wary of failure. (Source)

PvEOverall, how happy are you guys with Challenge Modes? Anything you'd have done differently, or maybe add more 5mans?
Very happy overall. One change we would make is that you don't get the best rewards unless you beat all of them. (Source)
That decision made sense since the armor is kind of goofy to wear piecemeal, but the feeling still persists. (Source)
We also understand that it doesn't scratch the challenging heroic itch for all players because of the speed emphasis. (Source)

Honestly I'd prefer challenge modes to be more of a CHALLENGE mode like an instance or small 5 man raid or something to test a group of 5 people. Just a higher tier of Heroic dungeons for those who still want that itch scratched cause I know I miss it. "Tabards" *cough*

Happy to see that GC recognises that the timers in challenge mode may not suit all players. I love challenging content but I am not a fan of the timer. I want the dungeon to be difficult because its difficult and not because I have to clear it in X time. I do miss Grim Batol and Stonecore pre nerf, they were really fun but I understand that they aren't suitable for LFD. Hoping they can find a way to have dungeons like that again in the future

don't be so naive those heirlooms have like 1-5% chance drop
even on our 25man kills only 1 person getting weapon
you can't coin them, plus be sure to change your loot specialization before kill or you could get 1 for you offspec and then never see another for main

Deathwing has been unleashed! Beginning today, October 15, players are able to get the original World of Warcraft, The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, and Cataclysm for only $19.99 as part of the newly upgraded World of Warcraft package (formerly known as the Battle Chest). In addition, all World of Warcraft subscribers now automatically have access to all of the content and features of these expansions at no additional cost.

With these changes, we’re making it easier than ever for new players to begin their epic adventures in Azeroth and join in on the fun.

The new retail edition of World of Warcraft will start hitting store shelves soon, but you can purchase the digital version now.

Happy to see that GC recognises that the timers in challenge mode may not suit all players. I love challenging content but I am not a fan of the timer. I want the dungeon to be difficult because its difficult and not because I have to clear it in X time. I do miss Grim Batol and Stonecore pre nerf, they were really fun but I understand that they aren't suitable for LFD. Hoping they can find a way to have dungeons like that again in the future

Yeah, I remember a terrible group I ran with in Grim Batol. Think it took over an hour to clear the place. Still, I prefer stuff like that over the easier alternatives.

Happy to see that GC recognises that the timers in challenge mode may not suit all players. I love challenging content but I am not a fan of the timer. I want the dungeon to be difficult because its difficult and not because I have to clear it in X time. I do miss Grim Batol and Stonecore pre nerf, they were really fun but I understand that they aren't suitable for LFD. Hoping they can find a way to have dungeons like that again in the future

I would have loved Challenge Mode if they didn't have the timer. Doing challenging content and getting a cool reward is fun, but not so much when you also have to try to cheese as much as possible to beat it in under 15 minutes or whatever the cutoff is. I think CMs would be more popular overall if it was just like.. clear 50% of them = mount, clear 100% = armor, no timer involved (but maybe still track the time for leaderboards and the like). As it stands I have never seen anyone on my server look for them, and it seems that half the groups I've seen that cleared included people from other realms.

Well there's no actual challenge in the challenge mode without the timer. I mean, go in without stomping everything, take your time to ress dead people,CC dangerous trash, wait for the healer to drink when oom, and you still get a silver medal easily.
Same goes with proving gorunds, it's a joke if you have all the time in the world...

Happy to see that GC recognises that the timers in challenge mode may not suit all players. I love challenging content but I am not a fan of the timer. I want the dungeon to be difficult because its difficult and not because I have to clear it in X time. I do miss Grim Batol and Stonecore pre nerf, they were really fun but I understand that they aren't suitable for LFD. Hoping they can find a way to have dungeons like that again in the future

Agree completely. Sure, speed is one way to add challenge, but like you said.. I just prefer it to be more difficult.

Heroic dungeons = LFR
Challenge mode = Raiding

It should require planning, teamwork, CC and doing mechanisms correctly.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Sharkz

So, as hunter, our 1rst flex heirloom will be useless, since most of us don't have hunter alts Unless the heirloom would be an upgrade over current weapon.

They are heirlooms for the NEXT expansion.. not for old content. They will scale up to level 100.

Basically you will get your heirloom, but continue using your heroic SoO weapon this expansion.. Next expansion, maybe level 91 or 92, your heirloom weapon will be an upgrade over your SoO weapon and then you can use that heirloom all the way to 100. ( since the heirlooms scale to 100, it is a good bet the next expansion will take us to 100)